Sanskrit grammar and of a Bengali-English dictionary. See J. C. Marshman's Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward (2
vols., 1859).
MARSIGLI (Latinized Marsilius), Luigi Ferdinand, soldier and savant, was born at Bologna, July 10, 1658, and died in the same city, November 1, 1730. After a considerable course of study in mathematics, natural history, and anatomy, he visited Constantinople, and on his return to Christendom offered his services to the emperor Leopold, then at war with the Turks (1682). Wounded and captured in an action on the river Raab, he was sold to a pasha and accompanied him to the siege of Vienna; but in 1681 his friends purchased his release, and at the close of the war he was appointed commissioner for fixing the new Dalmatian boundary. In 1703 he was second in command to the count of Arco when Alt-Breisach was surrendered to the duke of Burgundy; and, though popular opinion acquitted him of blame, Marsigli was cashiered when Arco was condemned to death. Devoting himself to scientific pursuits, he visited Switzerland, and spent a considerable time at Paris and Marseilles. He went to Rome in 1709 at the request of Clement XI., but soon returned to Marseilles to prosecute his investigations into the physical nature of the sea. In 1712 he presented his scientific collections to his native city, and thus gave rise to the Bologna Institute of Science and Art; and about the same time he established a press, including founts of Oriental characters, for printing the publications of the society.
Marsigli's own works were valuable contributions to knowledge, brought out in very handsome style. Best known are his curious physical history of the sea (Italian, Venice, 1711; French, Amsterdam, 1725), with a very laudatory preface by Boerhaave; L'état militaire de l'Empire Ottoman (Amsterdam, 1732); and Danubius Pannonico-Mysicus (Hague, 1726). This last, of which only three hundred and seventy-five copies were printed, consists of six huge folio volumes illustrated by nearly three hundred maps and engravings, and furnishes an exceedingly elaborate account of the course of the Danube, of the towns and antiquities along its banks, of its birds, beasts, fishes, &c. See Fontenelle's éloge in Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences, Paris, 1730; Quincy, Vie de Mons. le Comte de Marsigli, Zurich, 1741.
MARSTON, John, was one of the most vigorous satirists and dramatists of the Shakespearean age. He was probably some ten years younger than Shakespeare. He has been identified with a gentleman commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford, who entered in 1591, and was admitted B.A. in 1593 as the eldest son of an esquire. If this is the same John Marston that was buried in the Temple Church in 1634, under a tombstone Oblivioni sacrum, the identification of him with the poet is most probably right, for one of Marston's most singular poems is a prayer to Oblivion—
"Let others pray
For ever their fair poems flourish may;
But as for me, hungry Oblivion,
Devour me quick."
In the superfluity of learned allusions and Latin quotations in his plays Marston proclaims the fact that he was a university man. He entered the field of letters in 1598, as a satirist, with a Scourge of Villany. He was professedly an imitator of Juvenal, but he wrote rather in the spirit of Skelton, and speedily earned something like Skelton's reputation as a coarse ribald buffoon of astonishing energy, girding at the grossest vices of the time in "plain naked words stript from their shirts." There was more of the good-natured chuckling buffoon than of the cynic in Marston's satire, though he did profess unmeasured scorn for the vices and fopperies of his age. The coarse energy of his invective pours out as if he loved strong language more than he hated the subjects of his ridicule. Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis was one of Marston's first butts; in his Pygmalion's Image (1598) the wooing of Adonis by the queen of love is very roughly but very cleverly parodied. The freshness and vigour of Marston's vein brought him at once into notice. He is mentioned (misspelt as Maxton or Mastone) in Henslowe's Diary, in 1599, as "the new poet" receiving payment as part author of a play; and in the same year he was probably ridiculed by Ben Jonson as "Carlo Buffone" in Every Man out of his Humour. He and Dekker had a famous quarrel with Jonson arising out of the latter's attack upon them in the Poetaster (see Dekker). The literary enemies were reconciled; Marston forswore literary quarrels, dedicated a play to Jonson in terms of high eulogy, and was conjoined with Jonson and Chapman in the play of Eastward Ho! some political allusions in which nearly cost the authors their ears. Marston wrote comparatively few plays, published in quick succession at the following dates: Antonio and Mellida (1602); Antonio's Revenge (1602); The Malcontent (1604, his first and most powerful play); The Dutch Courtesan (1605); Parasitaster (1606); Sophonisba (1606); What You Will (1607). Marston then apparently left off play writing; if he lived till 1634, there is no explanation of his sudden stoppage. There is very little constructive skill in his plays; the plots are uninteresting. He does little more than send a procession of puppets across the stage, one or more of which "gird at" the others—very "loose libertines" and very contemptible some of them—in the author's own rough vein of satire. One scene in Antonio and Mellida was much admired by Charles Lamb, and either suggested or was suggested by one of the most powerful situations in King Lear. But the passage taken out of the body of the play gives a very misleading idea of its general tenor, or of the general cast of Marston's dramatic work.
MARSYAS was a Phrygian god, whose name has passed into Greek mythology. It is hardly possible to discover the real basis of the legends, as their original form has been so much altered. Marsyas was the god of a small river which rose in a cave in the agora of Celaenae, and flows into the Maeander. In this cave was hung a hide, which according to the story was the skin of Marsyas suspended there by Apollo. When Athene threw away her flute, Marsyas found it, a subject represented by the sculptor Myron. Proud of his skill, Marsyas challenged Apollo with his lyre. Midas the Phrygian king, appointed judge in the contest, preferred the flute-player, and got his ass's ears in reward for his stupidity. The contest and the punishment of Marsyas, who was flayed alive by Apollo, were frequent subjects for Greek art, both vase-painting and sculpture. There can be little doubt that this account has been very much altered from its native Phrygian form by the Attic comic poets, with whom Marsyas was a favourite character. With regard to the Phrygian god it is difficult to say more than that he and Silenus and Midas are associated in legend with Dionysus, and that he must therefore belong to the cycle of legends of Cybele (see Preller, Gr. Mythol., i. 508). The flute was the favourite instrument in the worship of the goddess. Sacrifices were offered by the people of Celaenae to Marsyas, and he helped them against the Galatians (Paus., x. 30). A statue of Marsyas was erected in the Roman Forum and in other towns, and is said to have been a symbol of liberty.
MARTEN,[1] the name of a group of animals constituting
- ↑ By all old authors of authority, as Ray, Pennant, Shaw, and Fleming, the word is written "Martin," but this form of spelling is now generally reserved by way of distinction for the bird (see Martin). The word, as applied to the animal here described, occurs in most Germanic and Romanic languages:—German, marder; Dutch, marler; Swedish, mard; Danish, maar; English, marteron, martern, marten, martin, and martlett; French, marte and martre; Italian, martora and martorella; Spanish and Portuguese, marta. Its earliest known use is in the form martes (Martial, Ep. x. 37), but it can scarcely be an old Latin word, as it is not found in Pliny or other classical writers,
